Roadblocks Remain as Officials Work Toward Iranian Nuclear Pact

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, center, in Geneva on Friday after a meeting with Western officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry.

Pool photo by Jason Reed

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and MARK LANDLER

November 8, 2013

GENEVA — With Secretary of State John Kerry and other ranking Western officials converging here on Friday, negotiators wrestled with the final hurdles to a landmark nuclear agreement with Iran that would temporarily freeze its nuclear program.

But they quit shortly before midnight, still confronting several difficult issues. Among the most contentious issues during the talks have been the fate of a reactor that Iran is building near Arak, what to do about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and how much relief to give Iran from punishing economic sanctions.

Mr. Kerry, who cut short a Middle East tour to fly to Geneva for the talks, warned that “there are important gaps that have to be closed.” But his mere presence, along with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Russia and China, suggested that an initial deal was in reach, the first such pact between Iran and major world powers in a decade.

As a first step, Western nations are seeking to freeze Iran’s nuclear program so that the West can conduct further negotiations without fear that Tehran is using the time to inch closer to a weapons capability.

“I want to emphasize: There is not an agreement at this point in time,” Mr. Kerry told reporters before plunging into meetings, including one with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. “There are still some important issues on the table that are unresolved.”

After Mr. Kerry’s meetings had ended, a senior State Department official said: “We continued to make progress as we worked to narrow the gaps. There is more work to do. The meetings will resume tomorrow morning.”

The major powers are demanding that Iran mothball the nuclear plant, a heavy-water reactor to produce plutonium that is scheduled for completion next summer, experts say. Once the reactor becomes operational, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the West to disable it by military means for fear of igniting the plutonium, a component of nuclear weapons.

Video Iran is in a much different position now to negotiate on its nuclear program than it was four years ago when President Obama first broached the subject.

Jason Decrow/Associated Press

“Once the reactor starts, any hostile action will have environmental consequences,” said Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “Thus the construction should be stopped at the front end of any agreement to pave the way for a long-term solution.”

As a possible compromise, experts say, Iran might agree to refrain from starting up the plant for the six months of an interim agreement, while continuing some work on the installation.

Iran has made clear it has no intention of suspending the enrichment of low-enriched uranium, either under an interim agreement or as part of a comprehensive accord.

But American officials still want to curb Iran’s ability to make a bomb in a matter of months. This could be done by banning Iran from enriching uranium to 20 percent and arranging for Iran to convert its current stock of such uranium into oxide form, which is harder to convert to weapons grade. Such a step, many experts say, would be more effective if it was also coupled with constraints on the number and type of centrifuges Iran is permitted to retain.

“If there aren’t more constraints put on the Iranian centrifuge program, then you haven’t accomplished very much at all,” David Albright, the president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said on a recent conference call organized by the Israel Project, a nonprofit organization.

American officials are believed to have sought a commitment by Iran that it would not operate sophisticated centrifuges, known as IR-2s, or install new ones. Banning Iran from manufacturing additional centrifuges of all types would also slow progress toward a bomb, but Mr. Albright said it might not be part of the Obama administration’s proposal.

To induce Iran to halt its program, the United States is proposing freeing up billions of dollars in Iranian funds that have been frozen in banks overseas, and could be given to Iran in installments in return for concessions. But on Friday, an Iranian negotiator said Iran expected relief from sweeping sanctions against its oil and banking industries. “We have announced to the West that in the first phase the issue of banking and oil sanctions must be considered,” said the representative, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, according to the Iranian news agency Mehr.

Mr. Takht-Ravanchi is a seasoned diplomat, but his statement seemed out of character for an Iranian delegation that has worked hard to raise expectations for an agreement.

Jean-Luc Chopard, right, the Geneva head of protocol, welcomed Secretary of State John Kerry at the Geneva International Airport on Friday.

Denis Balibouse / Reuters

In any event, the broader sanctions can be lifted only with congressional approval, a lengthy and political difficult process, given the strong sentiment among lawmakers to keep the pressure on Iran. The Senate, in fact, is considering additional sanctions, and agreed only to delay the bill briefly to avoid disrupting the initial rounds of talks.

News of a potential agreement prompted several Republican lawmakers to express concern that the major powers were about to reward Iran without removing its nuclear capabilities. Their criticism followed a blistering denunciation of the potential deal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

“The agreement would leave Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in place while undermining the sanctions pressure we worked so hard to build,” said Senator Mark S. Kirk, an Illinois Republican and Iran hawk. “In short, it will increase the likelihood of war when we should be doing all we can to achieve a peaceful outcome.”

Representative Ed Royce, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would hold hearings on the negotiations with Iran to coincide with the 100th day since the election of Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran — the political change that opened the door to the most serious diplomacy in a decade.

“Instead of toughening sanctions to get meaningful and lasting concessions, the Obama administration looks to be settling for interim and reversible steps,” Mr. Royce said in a statement. “A partial freeze of enrichment, as we’re hearing, is not a freeze.”

If Mr. Kerry succeeds in closing an interim deal, one of his first orders of business is likely to be lobbying his former colleagues in the Senate to support the agreement and to hold off on new sanctions. Mr. Kerry had planned to visit Algeria and Morocco, but he postponed those visits to return to Washington by early next week.

One stop Mr. Kerry has retained is Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, where he is scheduled to meet the crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed. Abu Dhabi, like other Persian Gulf states, is worried about the specter of a nuclear Iran and has been alarmed by the reports of a potential deal.

Mr. Kerry got a taste of the political storm any deal is likely to stir up earlier on Friday when he met in Tel Aviv with Mr. Netanyahu. The Israeli leader derided the potential agreement as “the deal of the century” for Iran and said Israel rejected it unequivocally.